1. 21st century learning through
Coding, Game-Design and
Tinkering
SXSWed Panel Proposal 2016

2. Summary
As the shift in education moves towards 21st century learning focusing on problem
solving, design thinking and collaboration, games have become effective systems to
address these skills. Makerspaces provide hands-on learning environment where
students can design, invent, build and create, but for some, they are expensive and
complex. Alternatively games are being leveraged to teach kids to these skills.This panel
brings together entrepreneurs developing learning games that explicitly teach coding,
game-design and implicitly teach 21st century skills our children need to be successful.
This group will explore the unique role games play in the maker movement to promote
21st century learning.

3. Learning Objectives
Learning Objective 1
Assess how coding and game-design games help kids gain
21st century skills.
Learning Objective 2
Analyze how coding and game design games provide
contextualized learning environments and allow kids to
learn by doing.
Learning Objective 3
Understanding what the barriers are to bring 21st century
learning games into the classroom and home.

4. Grant Hosford, codespark (speaker)
Grant is the CEO and co-founder of codeSpark, a
venture backed edtech company turning
programming into play for young kids around the
world. codeSpark’s game, The Foos, won a 2015
Parents’ Choice Award Gold Medal and has been
the #1 educational app for kids in over 20
countries.
Previously Grant was a Sr. Director at Idealab, a
tech incubator that has started over 125
companies since 1996. Grant was responsible for
evaluating early stage ideas so the best could be
turned into companies. Prior to Idealab Grant
was a senior executive at several early stage
companies, including eHarmony and ZAAZ, an
award-winning digital agency that was acquired
by WPP in 2006.
Grant has a MA in International Economics from The
Fletcher School (Tufts University) and a BA from
Claremont McKenna College. He lives with his wife
and three kids near Los Angeles and can generally be
found playing games with his family or riding his bikes.
He has lived in four continents: Africa, South America,
Europe and North America.

5. Mark Pavlyukovskyy, Piper (speaker)
After graduating with a Molecular Biology
degree from Princeton, Mark realized that he
wanted to be creating with bits and atoms
rather than cells and test tubes. He founded
Piper to create tools to empower the next
generation to see computers and electronics
as a creative medium rather than black box
devices. Piper's recently released Minecraft
Inventor's Toolbox targets today's generation
of young Minecraft lovers to allow them to
build electronics and circuits to modify the
game of Minecraft in real-time. The kit
received overwhelming support on Kickstarter,
and Steve Wozniak mentioned the similarity of
Piper to the early tools that made him
fascinated with electronics.

6. Robin Rath, PixelPress (speaker)
Robin Rath is the CEO and a co-founder of
Pixel Press (projectpixelpress.com), a
company building the next generation of
social networks for kids ages 6-14 to create,
share and play game-based content by
leveraging the integrated power of toys and
video games. Robin grew up playing video
games and building websites. He is
passionate about technology that makes
sharing stories and content in creative ways
accessible and fun for all ages. As a father of
two, Robin is focused on exploring ways to
enable our children to be the next generation
of creators and to start that process when
they are at their most creative developmental
stage, but doing so in a safe and age
appropriate way. Robin was recognized in the
2015 The Business Journals "Upstart 100"
list, recognizing top inventors and visionaries
driving the new economy.

7. Deena Minwalla, co.lab (moderator)
Deena is the Director of colab, and ed tech
start up accelerator in the Bay Area. She
has over 14 years of experience specializing
in interactive educational products for K-12.
She has worked at a variety of ed tech
companies including Leapfrog, Pearson,
Education.com and most recently, AltSchool.
She is passionate about making innovative,
fun and engaging yet effective learning
experiences for kids and teachers both inside
and outside the classroom. Deena
graduated with a B.A. in Anthropology from
Boston University and an M.A in Education
with a focus on Instructional Technology from
San Francisco State University.